Malawi Government with financial support from United Nations Development (UNDP) on Tuesday launched the Public Portal of the Aid Management Platform (AMP) in an effort to better track, report and share information development partner activities.

Speaking during the opening of a-day long workshop of the Open Development for Evidence-Based Policy in Lilongwe, Minister of Finance Maxwell Mkwezalamba said that AMP is an online tool, developed by Development Gateway that allows government and its partners to enter information on aid-funded projects.

He said the main purpose of the workshop is to discuss how Malawi can leverage its development data to support evidence-based decision-making.

“This workshop will strengthen government’s engagement around open development data. This will be done through creating awareness of how to access and make effective use of development data in order to accelerate progress towards the achievement of government development goals as outlined in the second Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS II) and the Economic Recovery Plan (ERP),” explained Mkwezalamba.

Mkwezalamba: AMP good

He said the workshop would also build on Malawi’s commitment to aid transparency and management which has been demonstrated through the establishment of an AMP in the Ministry of Finance.

Mkwezalamba said that through geo-coding initiative, the Ministry of Finance is able to locate on the map of Malawi specific locations of its development projects.

“As you might be aware, Malawi’s geo-coding initiative is now recognised globally as it is being cited as a milestone in aid transparency,” he said.

He explained that Malawi is pleased to be part of the Open Aid Partnership (OAP), a global initiative that brings together 19 development partners to promote open development and improve aid transparency and effectiveness.

Mkwezalamba added that the partnership helps to open up location-based development data and engages citizens and other stakeholders in evidence-based conversations on development.

“Malawi is one of the first countries to organise a data literacy boot camp with support from the OAP in order to build capacity among media and civil society organisations to access and use open development data in the country,” explained Mkwezalamba.

The platform is managed and administered by Debt and Aid Management Division (DAD) of the ministry of Finance. Participants were drawn from World Bank, Concern Universal, UNDP, Economic Planning and Development (EP&D), chief executive officers for Zomba and Mzimba district councils among others.